Fhe Inc.

FHE, Inc Description/Background

FHE, Inc is a manufacturer of pumps and related fluid handling equipment. The company is a supplier of products used to transfer liquids of various types. This can include adhesives, paint, and other food products. The automobile and appliance industry use pumps supplied by FHE, Inc. Vehicle servicing and home construction are other functions of the company’s pumps. Sales in 2008 were $ 105,200,000 and profit after tax was $5,470,000. (Schroeder, 2011) Through the introduction of new-products the company has seen an improvement in both sales and profits over the past 5 years.

The Vice President is Phil Thomas who leads the Marketing and Engineering departments. He was chosen to facilitate cross-functionality between Marketing and Engineering, especially with new product development and introductions. Sometimes is difficult to understand who is in charge of what department so diagnosing a problem when one occurs is not an easy task.

The company has been considering implementing a CAD-CAM system which would introduce a way to coordinate marketing, engineering, and manufacturing. The software supplier stated that the new product configuration would be entered directly from the computer and transmitted to the manufacturing department. This process virtually eliminates any errors that would normally occur in the translation from engineering to manufacturing.

This kind of system is needed due to Lum Donaldson’s, Product Development Engineering Manager, complaint that when a new product is introduced, it is often given to manufacturing with no idea, steps, directions, or approach. Although technical feasibility and possible production constraints are gone over it seems that the manufacturing approach has little input during product design.

FHE, Inc Failure and Success

Failures-New Product Development process is labeled as being “thrown over the wall” to the manufacturing department. (Schroeder, 2011) Avoiding new...